“No, it is very hard and stony under the sand, and we cannot drive any thing down at all.”
“Well,” said Mary Anna, “go on with your work, and I will sit down upon the bank and consider what you can do.”
After some time, Mary Anna proposed that the boys should go up to the wood-pile and get a short log of wood, which had one end sawed off square, and roll it down to the mole. Then that they should dig out a little hole in the bottom of the brook with a hoe, so deep that when they put in the log, the upper end would be a little above the surface of the mole. Then she said they might put in the log, with the sawed end uppermost, and while one boy held it steady, the other might throw in stones and sand all around it till it was secure in its place. Then they could build the mole a little beyond it; and thus there would be a solid wooden block, firmly fixed in the end of the mole.
“But how shall we fasten our flag-staff to it?” said David.
“Why you must get an augur, and bore a hole down in the middle of it, and make the end of your flag-staff round so that it will just fit in.”
The boys thought this an excellent plan, and went off after the log. While they were gone, Mary Anna asked Caleb if he had fed his squirrel that evening, and Caleb said he had not.
“Hadn't you better go now and feed him before it is too dark?”
“Why, no,” said Caleb, “I don't want to go now; besides, I am going to let Dwight feed him to-night. I promised Dwight that I would let him feed him sometimes.”
The truth was that Caleb wanted to stay and see the boys fix their log. He had had his squirrel now several days, and had lost his interest in him, as boys generally do in any new play-thing, after they have had it a few days. He was really, under this show of generosity and faithful performance of his promise, only gratifying his own selfish desires, but he did not see it himself. The heart is not only selfish and sinful, but it is deceitful; it even deceives itself.
So, presently, when Caleb saw David and Dwight rolling the log down from the house, he ran off to meet them, and said,